The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, September 25, 2015 — 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
University
releases report on
fracking practices
University
researchers
released findings from a three-
year study on hydraulic fracking.
Fracking, which injects mixtures
of water, chemicals and sand deep
underground to open cracks in
sediment, thereby releasing oil or
natural gas, has sparked a national
debate. Though the report takes
no stance on the use of fracking, it
includes suggestions for how the
public can become more involved
in shaping fracking policies.
Founders of
Nutshell to create
local tech hub
Guy Suter, Lindsay Snider
and Ian Berry, the founders of
Nutshell, a customer relationship
management
software,
purchased
three
properties
in downtown Ann Arbor. The
purchasers
plan
to
open
a
portion of the 24,000 square feet
to other Ann Arbor tech startups.
According to city records, the
three properties were purchased
for approximately $6 million.
Mud Bowl event
to continue after
roadblocks
Former members of the Sigma
Alpha Epsilon fraternity will now
host the annual Mud Bowl as an
independent organization, unaf-
filiated with SAE or any other
other organization. Because the
SAE house is owned by alumni,
not by the fraternity’s national
organization, they say they can
host the event without affiliation.
The former SAE chapter house
at 1408 Washtenaw Ave. will still
serve as the event’s venue.
Former SAE President Brett
Mizzi, a Business senior, said the
organization has developed a risk
management plan, hired security
and purchased insurance for the
event.
Mizzi said as University stu-
dents, the event’s organizers have
the right to assemble on private
property.
The University’s Office of Greek
Life had attempted to apply a pol-
icy that prevents current Greek
life members from participating in
events held by a chapter that had
been expelled from campus. SAE
was expelled from the Interfrater-
nity Council in 2011.
microorganism like a bacteria and
getting that to spin the fiber,” Lee
said.
Microbial cellulose is related
to cellulose derived from cotton,
which makes up a large percent-
age of commercial clothing. Lee
outlined three main benefits of
microbial cellulose: it is more eco-
logically sustainable to grow, it is
much purer and it absorbs dyes,
which are usually toxic in their liq-
uid form, much more effectively.
The process of growing micro-
bial cellulose, which takes about
three weeks in total, involves cre-
ating a bath of nutrients, a carbon
source and microbes. Lee accom-
plishes this with green tea, refined
sugar and a complex community of
yeasts and bacteria. This commu-
nity, called a symbiotic colony of
bacteria and yeast — or SCOBY — is
identical to that which makes the
drink kombucha. As the microbes
feed and multiply, they produce
cellulose in a thick mat that can
be later washed, dried and cut into
fabric.
Art & Design junior Harsha
Devaraj said he thought this pro-
cess was particularly interesting.
“The final product that she came
out with, the jackets, were really
cool. But I really enjoyed the pro-
cess. Seeing the time-lapse of the
bacteria synthesizing the material
was easily the coolest part of the
whole thing,” he said.
Lee also talked about her
involvement in growing cow skin
for leather. She spoke about an
epiphany moment she had while
discussing lab-grown tissue with a
synthetic biologist.
“If it was possible to grow
human tissue in the lab, why not
animal tissue? And in fact, why
still require killing an animal just
to obtain certain parts of it if it’s
possible for us to grow the correct
cells and just use those tissues?”
she said.
LSA senior Léa Ono said the
sustainability
focus
resonated
with her.
“It always troubled me how
wasteful the material process is,”
she said. “In order to dye any fab-
ric, we have to wear gloves and a
mask and a full body coat because
the dyes were so toxic. So I was
thinking about the beet dyes and
vegetable dyes and how amazing
it would be if we could do leather
with mammalian cells.”
Lee said the process of “bio-
fabrication”
through
microbial
cellulose was difficult to produce
in large quantities and may have
a limited impact on the fashion
industry as a whole. However, cit-
ing examples of mushroom-derived
furniture, bacterially constructed
bricks and biofuels, Lee said inter-
sections between design and fash-
ion will be influential in decades to
come.
“I fundamentally believe today
that the future of creativity and
design in working materials is real-
ly going to intersect and depend on
what’s happening in biology,” she
said.
mittees asked EMU President
Kim Schatzel and Oakland
University President George
Hynd
for
their
opinions
regarding the performance-
based
standards
and
the
tuition cap.
The members asked wheth-
er the presidents saw the cap
as positive reinforcement or
punishment and what they
thought the subcommittee
could do to prevent such sub-
stantial tuition hikes from
becoming a recurring trend.
Hynd said the performance
metrics are good ones, but
he thinks the tuition cap is
restrictive.
“They are the ones (college
presidents) might be able to
have an impact on, so I think
that makes sense,” he said.
“The tuition restraint can be
viewed as either a carrot or a
stick, and I think that’s prob-
ably worthy of some discus-
sion.”
Schatzel said EMU has not
increased its tuition rate in
years because her school is
committed to keeping college
affordable and that the tuition
remains comparatively low.
“In 2005, our tuition was
roughly equal to that of our
peer institutions,” she said.
“Ten years later, our tuition is
5 to 13 percent lower than our
peers. With the recent tuition
increase,
Eastern
remains
13 out of 15 in tuition costs
among Michigan’s public uni-
versities.”
Schatzel said this shows
EMU’s financial well-being
and has kept expenses low so
that it has not had to increase
tuition
substantially
every
year.
“At Eastern we clearly
understand
that
approxi-
mately 80 percent of every
dollar we spend comes from
the pockets of our students,
and the remaining 20 percent
comes from the taxpayers of
the state of Michigan,” she
said.
She also noted that fresh-
man enrollment has risen
rapidly at EMU, and that the
school is dedicated to pro-
viding
students
with
the
best resources. However, she
said, it is difficult to do that
at a university that has lower
financial reserves than many
other public institutions in
the state without increasing
tuition.
Schatzel said the majority
of students — 87 percent — at
EMU are Michigan residents,
which, she said could explain
why the school may have
fewer
financial
resources
than other schools.
She used the University of
Michigan as an example to
prove this point, noting 45
percent of its student body
is from out of state and thus
pays
significantly
higher
tuition than the majority of
students at EMU.
Hynd echoed Schatzel’s
sentiment and said Oakland
wants to meet students’ pri-
orities and invest in their
educations, but doing so on a
limited operating budget is a
challenge.
“Neither the university nor
the state has generated suf-
ficient resources to meet the
needs of our students,” he
said. “Oakland’s all-in tuition
rates have long priced below
the comparable rates of our
state peers. Although we are
grateful and encouraged to
see the state of Michigan has
begun to reinvest in higher
education through increased
appropriations, the fact is that
historically, Oakland has been
underfunded.”
He said Oakland spends
less per student than do most
public universities in the state
because the school receives
less state funding than the
statewide average.
“Oakland has done its best
to keep tuition increases as
manageable as possible for
students and certainly their
families,” he said. “These
efforts have kept us within
the bottom half of Michigan
public universities when it
comes to the all-in cost of edu-
cation.”
State Rep. Mike McCready
(R–Birmingham),
co-chair
of the House Appropriations
subcommittee on higher edu-
cation, said the two subcom-
mittees would meet again to
further discuss these issues.
was changed in the survey dur-
ing the process of distributing it
at other schools.
“AAU changed the way they
did that at other campuses after
we gave them that feedback,”
Axinn said. “We were among
the very first to go, and it was a
mistake, so we helped them fix
it further. When you say, ‘Oh,
the statistics are different com-
ing out of different schools,’ it
turns out they sort of did a differ-
ent survey everywhere. It’s ‘the
same,’ but not really the same. It
means two percentage points is
not very big.”
Furthermore, he said, it’s
important to remember that the
AAU survey still featured a rela-
tively small sample; 28 schools
are not necessarily representa-
tive of a national landscape.
Regardless of comparisons
to peer institutions, University
President Mark Schlissel said
these results represent a discon-
nect between the University’s
intentions and the end result
when treating cases of sexual
misconduct.
“We take every report of
potential assault or miscon-
duct of any kind very seriously,”
Schlissel said. “So the obvious
problem is that we are not get-
ting that message across in a way
that the students either hear or
believe.”
E. Royster Harper, vice presi-
dent for student life, echoed this
sentiment, and added that it is
the University administration’s
responsibility to prove wrong
those who doubt the University’s
intentions.
“Certainly people’s perception
is the reality that they’ve experi-
enced,” she said. “Whatever the
reason is, we know that is not the
work we’re doing or the intent of
the work that we’re doing or the
commitment of the institution.
So we just have to work harder
to make sure that that assertion
simply is not true.”
As for application of the num-
bers — both from the AAU sur-
vey and the University’s internal
survey — Holly Rider-Milkovich,
director of the Sexual Assault
Prevention and Awareness Cen-
ter, said student input will be
essential moving forward.
“What the institution is doing
this semester, specifically, is
really working hard on engag-
ing with our students in many
different ways — along with our
faculty and staff — to take a hard,
critical look at our current sexual
misconduct policy and really ask
for our students to engage with
us on some suggestive revisions
that are coming down the pike,”
Milkovich said.
Harper said she plans to send
out an all-student e-mail next
week further elaborating upon
the plans to involve students in
the process of evaluating the
University’s Student Sexual Mis-
conduct Policy.
Broadly, Milkovich said stu-
dent organizations, units of Stu-
dent Life and Central Student
Government are partnering to
host forums during the revision
process. During the events, stu-
dents will have the opportunity
to evaluate revision drafts, ask
questions and provide feedback.
Milkovich
also
mentioned
that, beyond pre-existing pro-
gramming such as Change it Up
or Relationship Remix, SAPAC
has been working with Recre-
ational Sports to create a poster
campaign to appear in facilities
across campus. These posters
will “reinforce the fundamentals
of respect,” including consent.
“We want to be reinforcing
that healthy relationships are
a part of an overall wellness,”
Milkovich said. “So those kinds
of messaging, specific to the
ways that students engage in
sports on our campus ... is an
example of those targeted kinds
of education efforts that need to
complement the big-scale work
that we’re doing. And all of that
has to happen on many different
levels.”
As in previous interviews, the
administrators present empha-
sized that sexual misconduct
has become a community prob-
lem — one that will require a
cultural shift on the part of the
students and not only through
new policies.
“Anything that involves 20
or 30 percent of a population,
that’s not a rare event — this is
everyday life, this is culture,”
Schlissel said. “And that high-
lights for me that the University
isn’t going to be able to solve
this problem without the stu-
dents stepping up and working
with us to solve the problem,
because it’s the student culture
that is supporting or allowing
this milieu to exist. We’ll only
be successful if we find ways for
University leaders to work with
students and students leaders
and also the broader student
community on solutions.”
“I’ve made much less of a
big deal about the difference
between
Michigan’s
num-
bers and the average of this
larger group simply because
the average of the larger group
is unacceptable,” he added.
“Regardless of what the num-
ber is, it requires our maximum
attention, because it’s unrea-
sonable.”
Schlissel
also
noted
that
despite high rates of sexual mis-
conduct, the rate of people who
who reported feeling unsafe
on campus is relatively low —
a seeming contradiction that
Dean of Students Laura Blake
Jones said the University is
struggling to mitigate.
“I know that at the University
of Michigan, we are a national
leader in prevention work and
that we’re not just doing the
minimum of what’s expected of
us,” Black Jones said. “All of our
students have very high … num-
bers of participating in multiple
experiences of prevention, and
yet our numbers are the way
they are. For me, that’s the emo-
tional piece … our model is what
so many campuses are working
to replicate and do right now,
and we’ve been doing that and
sustaining that and our num-
bers are still as bad as they are.”
Milkovich noted that data
from programs such as Rela-
tionship Remix show that posi-
tive teachings about consent
and healthy behavior begin to
“wear off” after about a year.
“More efforts to our students
across the course of their stu-
dent life span is a frontier that
we need to figure out how we
will reach,” she said.
The hope, Blake Jones said, is
to reach a point where students
start leading the conversation
as opposed to having admin-
istrators start it. The Office of
Student Life has been provid-
ing training for “high-impact”
groups on campus — including
ROTC, Greek life, the Michi-
gan Marching Band, student-
athletes and club-sport athletes
— with the hope that their col-
lective visibility and influence
will allow them to lead the rest
of the student community in
promoting each other’s wellbe-
ing and preventing, among other
behaviors, sexual misconduct.
Blake Jones said the Univer-
sity is alone among other Divi-
sion 1 institutions in requiring
every member of every team —
including athletes, coaches and
assistant coaches — to take sex-
ual misconduct training.
“The takeaway ending mes-
sages to students in the train-
ing is that if the campus climate
is really going to change … it’s
going to be the actions of not
the dean of students sitting in
the Michigan Union, or SAPAC
ardently doing their work, but
the people who have been inside
these programs living and prac-
ticing the skills and interrupt-
ing situations of potential harm
before they escalate,” Blake
Jones said.
Shifting the responsibility to
students, it seems, may play a
big role moving forward — espe-
cially, as Axinn noted, when
“these data are as far from per-
fect as data can be.”
“You are all adults,” Schlissel
said. “This is the way your com-
munity is treating one another,
so think about that. We have to
think about that together and try
to solve this issue together.”
Steven Pachman, an attorney at
Montgomery McCracken Walker
& Rhoads LLP who specializes
in sports-related cases, discussed
the legal and clinical challenges
that schools, coaches and train-
ers encounter when faced with a
sports injury. Many of these cases,
he noted, end in settlements total-
ing millions of dollars.
“The problem is that experts
still have vastly competing views
on what constitutes proper stan-
dard care,” he said. “A big issue is
also lack of documentation — if it’s
not documented, it didn’t happen.”
Pachman also noted that pic-
tures of injured students create
compelling narratives for juries,
causing difficulties for athletic pro-
grams facing litigation.
“At the end of the day the health
and safety of the athlete always
comes first,” he said. “But athletic
programs do need to make sure
they’re up to date with documenta-
tion and management protocols for
legal issues.”
Broglio’s studies have looked
into issues related to when athletes
return to play after a concussion,
concussion epidemiology and the
history of concussions.
Currently, every student-athlete
on campus has the option to enroll
in an ongoing study on the long-
term symptoms of concussions.
They receive baseline evaluations
and re-evaluations every year.
“We’re really trying to demon-
strate how often the injury occurs,
what the long-term effects are,
things that confound,” Broglio said.
“We want to just put some facts
out there and dispel some of the
rumors floating around.”
ADMINS
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TUITION
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FASHION
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BRAIN
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AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
LEFT: Concussion lawyer Steven Pachman speaks to attendees of the University of Michigan Injury Center Sport Concussion Summit at Junge Family Campions Center on Thursday. RIGHT:
Joanne Gerstner, professor of journalism at Michigan State University, speaks about media coverage of concussion cases to attendees at the conference.
CONCUSSION SEMINAR